Sunday

Nice day south of the Rio: temperatures in the mid-nineties, very little moisture after some rain last night, and a breeze. We decided to head into town and visit the MARCO* art museum between the Barrio and the Macroplaza. I'd been wanting to go back for a while, having heard good things about the current exhibits. Inside we found an interesting exhibit for some reason titled "Boundaries in Movement." This was an exploration of the way people react to, and interact with, art (though it seemed more like a bunch of documentaries on self-obsessed, clichéd artists: "I just don't see things like regular people..."). But around the corner was a very interesting array of maybe fifteen flatscreen monitors running simultaneous videos from the border: each showing footage of, among other things, tin immigration barricades, interviews with regular folks on either side, and helicopters spotlighting running people. On the first floor, the MARCO is exhibiting the whimsical film work of William Kentridge, a series of interrelated black and white loops, running mostly backwards, showing the artist doing things like reassembling and then erasing a torn up charcoal self-portrait, flying to the moon in a teapot (through an astrology of negative image, high-contrast scurrying ants), and catching the rising pages of a book he is assembling in his hands. Throughout, the artist walked back and forth through his frames--this was a man with something to say about movement. My favorite rooms exhibited the works of Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, responsible for turning concrete into squared-off, angular buildings of immense horizontal and vertical space--credits include the MARCO building itself. After, we ate empanadas, tlacoyos, and sopes at La Casa de Maiz in the Barrio. The huitlacoche was not ready yet, so I got potato, bean, and nopalito filling, instead. [Cavin]